Coronavirus vocabulary: vaccine

PRESENTER: The coronavirus was

teaching us a lot

on infectious diseases

and public health, but it is also

teaching us many new words.

I’ll help you talk

coronavirus.

It really is learning

a new language.

What is a vaccine,

and how exactly does it work?

Vaccines are unique in medicine

which are designed to prevent

rather than cure a disease.

Typically, they contain

a small amount of a disease

that he was killed

or weakened to the point

that can’t make you sick.

The idea is to stimulate

your immune system in action

so that it produces

protective antibodies

the same way it would if you

he really got sick.

We already have vaccines that

protect us from more than 20

life-threatening diseases.

The World Health Organization

estimates that prevent

to 3 million deaths a year

from diseases such as the flu,

measles and tetanus.

Most vaccines are delivered

from a shot or injection,

but some are sprinkled

through the nose

or even swallowed.

And by the way, you might hear

the term “immunization”.

It means exactly the same thing

as a vaccination.

Some of the candidates

for a COVID-19 vaccine

they are using a new technology that

uses messenger RNA.

An mRNA vaccine contains

a synthetic version of RNA

that viruses use to form

proteins.

The vaccine does not contain

sufficient genetic information

to produce viral proteins,

enough to deceive

the immune system to think

a virus is present so that

will take action to do

those antibodies.




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